


Family is Complicated

by Archangel_Beth



Series: Borg of Star Trek Online [5]
Category: Star Trek Online
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-12
Updated: 2017-10-12
Packaged: 2019-01-16 15:31:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12345495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Archangel_Beth/pseuds/Archangel_Beth
Summary: Once upon a time, Phadis was assimilated into the Collective. Now she's out. But it's hard to have sisters who are innocent kids, and also your worst nightmare...Cover athttps://archangelbeth.deviantart.com/art/Family-is-Complicated-709442192





	Family is Complicated

Phadis missed the older Spacedock at Earth. Stepping onto the new one, after so long in a Borg cube, had been... unpleasant. Her old memories had been dream-like, layered with fragments of other people's thoughts in the Collective. Seepage that accompanied the Collective's distributed-system thoughts of maintenance and conquest and analysis. 

Spacedock wasn't the same now. There was no way to tell whose memories were whose.

But it was where she had to be while her ship endured repairs. And one of her officers...

Well, Nonesuch was a young android, as androids went. She'd picked her name for ancient tricksters who told their enemies their names were "nobody" or "nothing" or "shadows." And less-ancient tricksters liked bars. And the one at Earth Spacedock was... tame. Very tame.

Still, Nonesuch had asked Phadis to take her to one, so she wouldn't make any uncomfortable mistakes and upset anyone there. So Phadis, lacking anything else she needed to do more, had agreed.

Privately, Phadis thought they looked more like siblings than an android and its Andorian captain. Nonesuch had picked antennae for her chassis, although with a purple coloration, silver sensor-eyes, and the requisite android "blinkenlites" -- the term according to some humans, anyway -- to identify her species. Meanwhile, Phadis... had her useless antennae laid back against her skull in a permanent Andorian scowl, barely any hair to speak of, a few Borg attachments left at her jaw and eyebrow, and wore armor to hide that despite the _Gracie_ 's doctor's best efforts... Well, she at least had internal organs again and _could_ eat and drink.

As they neared the bar, with Nonesuch waving her antennae around and rubbernecking with android interest, some of Phadis' remaining devices picked up... communication. The murmur of Borg talking to Borg. She stopped on the ramp, mastering her reaction to the unexpected input.

"Captain?" Nonesuch asked, pausing a moment later, antennae swinging to scan her.

The input was identified. Not true Borg communication, though using the same channels. Text messages, or the moral equivalent. Phadis let out her breath in a sigh. "It's fine." She started walking again.

One end of the "bar" -- billed more as a club -- was open to the view of Earth and the ships that moved past. One end overlooked the interior of the Spacedock, and held the dance floor. The center had the bar proper, and was the first area they entered. Nonesuch was charmed, clearly, and as soon as they'd moved out of the way of anyone else entering, asked, "Should we order a drink?"

Phadis shrugged. "If you wish." She knew that many androids had the ability to pretend to eat and drink, and appropriate sensors to give them... some kind of sensory satisfaction from the activity. And even if Nonesuch could only carry a glass around, it would probably have some psychological effect.

So she went to the bar, raised a hand with two fingers up at the Vulcan bartender, and when she came over, said, "Whatever you recommend for an android, and I'll have one as well, unless it's toxic." Phadis had enough nanites left in her that drunkenness was hard to achieve, and minor poisons would be taken care of, but anything that took energy to purge would mean she might have to use the regen closet instead of sleeping like a real person.

It was hard to put memories of the Collective behind one when the reminders were in your flesh -- what was left of it, anyway -- and what you needed to survive. Phadis was familiar with at least a dozen counselors, and not just the ones on her own ship. Not just Ry'var of the _Gracie._

Dark thoughts, with a whisper of Borg communication in the back of her mind. The drinks arrived quickly, and Phadis passed one to Nonesuch. "Do you want to stay here at the bar or do you want to look around?" she asked her android officer.

"Can we look around?" Nonesuch asked. "While holding drinks?"

"Just try not to spill anything." Phadis slid off the barstool and waited for Nonesuch to follow.

If she queried the communications, she'd be able to tell which direction they were coming from. But that would expose her to... return queries. So Phadis just gestured with one hand. "Booths and view that way, dance floor the other way. Your choice."

Nonesuch looked in both directions, and said, "I would like to see dancing, sir!"

So dancing it was. This part of the club was dimly lit, save for the dance-floor's ever-shifting glow and the decorative geometric shapes at the wall and ceiling. There was just enough stable lighting to keep people from getting disoriented and ill.

Nonesuch moved to a corner of the room where they wouldn't be in the way, with Phadis following, and stared raptly at the smattering of dancers on the floor, and the lights that pulsed vaguely in time with the music's beat.

Phadis sipped her drink -- just enough alcohol to taste it, and some acidic Earth fruit -- and felt old and indulgent. She gazed out at the room herself, part wishing for the low-light amplification she'd once had, and part revolted at herself for that wish.

Behind the dance-master's kiosk... movement. Phadis tilted her head a little, and made sense of it.

Two people sat at a table, nearly hidden. One... a captain's uniform, with enough blue to indicate she'd come up through science. The lights glittered off her headset's band. The other wore black, with a spangling at her gloves, and purely white hair, short and sleek. They were facing each other, heads bent together, with an occasional brief gesture from gloved hand or pale.

Nonesuch said, "Oh. Captain? Is this a problem?"

Phadis glanced at her officer, who had apparently followed her line of sight. She said, "Shouldn't be. They're not forming a Collective."

"Sir?"

"The data," Phadis explained, gesturing vaguely at her own head with her free hand. "It's low-bandwidth. Text. Not... neurological."

Nonesuch was staring at her, but movement attracted Phadis' attention back to the other two.

They'd stood, hesitated a moment as they looked at each other, and then turned to the dance floor. (They gave no indication that they'd noticed Phadis, unless that'd been part of the messaging.) They walked there, not quite in sync, for the white-haired one was shorter than her companion.

There was a clear enough spot for them to stand upon the light-pulsing floor, again facing each other. They waited a few beats (messages pulsing in a clear "one-two-three"), then each put out one arm, mirroring. Their heads turned to that side, then the other, with the other arm. And they danced.

It was a clearly choreographed routine. Phadis vaguely recalled seeing pieces of it somewhere, on some flat-screen entertainment her off-duty crew'd watched. Spin, pause, hand and leg out in a diagonal line, toe pointed against the floor. Repeat to the other side. Then they touched hands in a complicated pattern, high and low and midpoint, something between a children's clapping game and a marriage's four-person dance. Half-spin, palms out behind each other, touching, and mirrored steps without looking.

"Are they linked?" Nonesuch breathed.

Phadis shook her head a little. "No. They're just... They programmed it. They're showing off."

The red-haired woman's ponytail swung, counterpart to the white-haired one's shoulder-sash, as they twirled and spun, and made their precise, mirrored movements in a dance that was... the creativity of a dozen different dances, assimilated into one. Each of them was biting her lip in concentration. Each of them had a slightly different expression of almost-smiling.

"You're _sure_?" Nonesuch whispered.

"I'd know," Phadis said. And then, because she wasn't sure how much the android had researched her, added, "It's Eight and Ten of Thirty. They're just playing."

"I don't understand the game, sir."

"Look at everyone else." The other dancers had noticed the pair of Liberated Borg and while a couple determined ones were at the other edge, still dancing with each other, everyone's eyes were for the Borg, covertly or overtly. Nervous, wary, hostile, troubled... "The game is to see how well they execute their dance-maneuvers. And to show everyone else how well they're doing it, because they're show-offs. And to show that's _all_ they're doing."

"Oh." Nonesuch went back to watching intently as the two Borg shifted to side-to-side maneuver, then back-to-back, then something that could've been martial arts practice, with Eight sweeping a leg over the crouching Ten, and then spinning and lifting her other leg as the smaller Ten rolled forward and under. The next maneuver...

Ten attempted a low-speed, low-height vault over Eight's back, hands on the human Borg's spine, and Eight straightened just an instant too soon. Instead of landing on hands or shoulder, Ten slid sideways and thumped onto her side onto the floor, her Borg eyepiece smacking into it loudly.

Eight exclaimed, "Ack!" And there were flickering aqua nanites covering the smaller Borg as she sprawled on the floor.

The dance-master was muting the music as Ten pushed herself up and said, clearly, "We made it to phase three this time!"

"I think we need to work on that vault timing," Eight said, and offered Ten a hand up.

Ten accepted it, shook out the leg and arm she'd landed on, and waved cheerfully at the dance-master. The music started up again as the pair returned to their prior table, with the repair nanites filtering back to their owner or breaking down, unneeded.

Nonesuch asked, "Did they do that on purpose?"

Phadis shook her head. "Eight wouldn't have used her nanites if she hadn't been worried. The on-purpose part was pushing themselves." Should she be worried at how confident she was of that?

Probably.

She added, "Why don't we go look out the lounge window? It's a good view of Earth. Might see some good ships."

"Of course, Captain," Nonesuch said, which Phadis suspected meant she'd rather stay at the dance-club side, but not enough to object.

The other part of the club was quieter, full of booths, tables, and couches. And, at the far end, the promised view. They got there in time to admire a Vulcan ship going past, in the traditional ring-and-needle look that had served their species since before the Federation began. Then the view was the planet spinning below, in alien familiarity.

Phadis caught herself wondering how many humans had been in the Thirty, that would've been old enough to remember their homeworld. It made her broody enough that the bright laughter, approaching, wasn't an unwelcome distraction -- even if she knew the voices too well.

Nonesuch murmured, "Sir?"

"It's fine," she replied.

"...complicated?" the android asked, after the myriad calculations required to figure out what social interaction was appropriate.

"Very," Phadis said, and sipped her drink. Then she turned, for the laughter had gone quiet.

Eight and Ten stood at the edge of the clear area in front of the viewing window. In the brighter light, it was obvious that Eight had charcoal gray eye-sensors, much like Nonesuch's own. Meanwhile, Ten's blue-black outfit now showed some claim to being a uniform for the Romulan Republic. At least, it had tiny pauldrons, a captain's scarf trailing behind her from the right-hand one, and muted rectangles spangling the sleeves. And the thigh-high boots that weren't remotely regulation that Phadis knew of, but showed up on any number of Republic commanders.

Phadis wondered, in passing, if the Republic uniform would ever be adopted by enough of its military to leave only the older, eccentric ones wearing whatever they pleased.

The younger two Liberated Borg hesitated, since she didn't say anything, and then Eight saluted properly, and Ten -- a breath later -- bowed, though not low enough that she couldn't watch anxiously.

Phadis sighed, managed a half-smile that she actually felt, and gave her own salute back. "Managed to avoid breaking your neck there," she said.

Ten looked sheepish, examining the ceiling-corners with her hands suddenly clasped behind her back, while Eight harrumphed and shoved at her shoulder. Eight added, "My sister is a lunatic!"

 _Oh by the Infinite, they're such kids._ And there'd been need to throw these kids onto ships, and into battle. Where they'd acquitted themselves well, by luck and whatever they'd absorbed from the Collective, in their amalgam of adult and child and Borg. But kids were kids and even though a part of Phadis still wanted to run screaming from these unabashed reminders... She said, "Meet one of my bridge officers, Nonesuch. Nonesuch, this is Eight of Thirty and Ten of Thirty." To that pair, she asked, "So how's everyone else?" It was good to model casual conversation for the android. And possibly for the kids themselves.

They moved closer, ridiculously relieved to have that implicit permission, and shook hands with Nonesuch. Eight said, "We have decided that Fourteen's species is 'Starfleet,' and she agrees. Starfleet Liberated Borg Human."

Poker-faced, Ten said, "It is very long when she fills out forms."

Nonesuch waved her antennae curiously in Ten's direction. "You are not a Vulcan?" she said, doubtfully.

"We are not precisely sure," Ten said, doing a good Vulcan impression. "It is possible that Doctor Jones rolled dice. Or perhaps..." Her expression went to something showing concern, or worry. "Perhaps it was better for Ele-- for Setek. That I not be sent to Vulcan with him."

"We hear he's still meditating," Eight said. She explained to Nonesuch, "He went back to Vulcan after our cube was blown up. We would like to see him, but it's probably not good for him."

"It's harder for adults," Ten murmured, with the little head-movements of her habitual scanning... directed at the floor.

"So how's Thirteen?" Phadis asked her.

Ten perked up, lifting her gaze. "Drinking things! All kinds of things. And flying very quickly! Admiral Kererek makes the most _amazing_ expressions whenever Thirteen is mentioned. He looks like a despairing Vulcan."

Eight added, "We haven't heard from Twelve, of course, but sometimes we pick up her echo when we are near Klingon space, so we are pretty sure she's on a ship. Twelve is Klingon," she directed at Nonesuch. "She swears a lot."

"Don't most Klingons?" the android asked.

Phadis said, "Oh, yes," and found herself in an inadvertent chorus with the other two. At least they hadn't chorded.

Eight and Ten continued, still in chorus (but not chording), "Twelve swore _in the cube_."

Nonesuch blinked, processing that information. "I didn't know that the Collective permitted..."

Ten explained, "When Setek was Eleven, he balanced it out. It was... a little glitch. The cube was permitting little glitches. And mutations. If a unit could contain a little glitch without loss of efficiency, then it wasn't worth destroying a drone that was otherwise useful. With the mess that happened with Lo-- with the first of the Liberated, the Collective let a few cubes... experiment. Because there might come a time when drones were in shorter supply, especially for advance scouts and ships."

Nonesuch was, once again, rapt. "The first of the Liberated?"

Phadis said, "The _Enterprise_ 's captain of the era. Picard. The Borg Queen named him Locutus, and he commanded a cube that nearly reached Earth, but his crew pried him out." She marveled that she could just say those words without letting out the screams that circled around and around in her throat. But Nonesuch needed to know the... circumlocutions that the kids used.

Ten said, very seriously, "No one should try to steal the _Enterprise_ 's captain. Not one the ship likes, anyway."

"Has there ever been a captain she didn't like?" Eight asked.

"I'm sure he's liked some more than others," Ten said, then asked, "Is _Enterprise_ a 'he' because it's a ship, or a 'she' because it's a _human_ ship?"

"The current captain is an Andorian, though," Nonesuch said, with a touch of antenna-solidarity pride.

"Does that mean the ship's pronouns should change with the captain?" Ten mused.

Phadis said, firmly, "With the language." She'd never been good at languages before, but now... she slipped into Terran standard whenever she was on Earth Spacedock or around majority-human crew. Another thing she'd had to get over, during counseling. "So 'she.' If we speak Romulan, it'd be 'he.'"

The kids nodded, as if this settled the matter entirely, and there was a brief pause -- probably while everyone consulted their memorized "social interaction" instructions. Eight was the one who said, "How have you been doing, Phadis?"

Not _Sixteen,_ and not even an appreciable pause, unlike with poor, absent Setek. Counselor Ry'var had done good work. Phadis pulled her ship's status into mind. "Well, I've been flying escort duty a lot. I was transferred into a _Kumari_ -class -- an older ship, not top-of-the-line anymore -- when my last one needed all those repairs from that pirate fleet incident."

"We are glad you made it out," Ten said.

Eight said, "The reports we got were kind of..." She went hunting for a word.

Nonesuch supplied, "Understated."

"We only _almost_ blew up," Phadis said, banter on automatic.

"Six times," Nonesuch clarified. "Twelve if you count--"

Phadis decided to tune out her android officer's eidetic recall of the battle. There'd been a couple other Starfleet ships there, though one of them with a captain so wet behind the antennae she might've been in her _zhavey_ 's pouch -- if she hadn't been human, of course. But a convoy escort with a theoretically sufficient "show of force" of three Starfleet ships, while good for the younger captain, had turned... messy.

The kids were good listeners. Even Ten, who still had programming to keep her continually scanning everything with little head-twitches, managed to keep that to a minimum while they paid attention to Nonesuch's tale. And the private Borg-channel chatter between them was all but silent. Nothing, Phadis wagered, besides _I'm here_ pings.

They hadn't merged back when they'd found each other. They hadn't formed a miniature Collective. Starfleet counselors did a good job. Eight and Ten -- and Fourteen, and Thirteen -- were individuals, and willing to stay that way.

But Ry'var had decided, when the kids had all been fresh-caught, to keep them thinking they were each the only survivor, so they wouldn't obsess over linking up again. It had probably been a good idea. An excellent idea. The safest idea. It had apparently worked. But that obsessive little _I'm here_ ping, while they were in range and not under comm-silence conditions...

Before letting Phadis re-apply to Starfleet, Ry'var had decided Phadis should see the recordings of Eight, in her brig-cell, methodically calling out to the unit. _"Because,"_ the Caitian had said, _"you'll meet Eight again. And Fourteen. You... should know them from the outside."_

Know them. See them. Work through the instinctive revulsion and anger and fear. Work through the pity for them as child victims of the Borg. Work through the frustration that they still clung to the memory of the only life they remembered, insignificant parts of the soul-crushing whole that cared nothing for any single drone.

Phadis wasn't done working through each part of that. Probably would never be, no matter what Ry'var or other counselors said. She wasn't a Vulcan -- and Setek'd taken it even worse than she had. Or maybe he'd been less modified, and thus able to go back without everyone staring at non-functional antennae, or a body that was still more metal than anyone was comfortable with. At least in Starfleet, no one stared the same way civilians did.

But, all right, they were still kids. Weird Borg kids who'd used the inside of her head for their thoughts, and vice versa, whenever the Collective decided to distribute the processing power to handle something. Weird Borg kids who were a little _Borg_ for everyone's taste except their own.

But kids.

So Phadis wouldn't scream and run away. Wouldn't scream and shake them till they stopped missing the Collective. That would've taken too long anyway, and the running away didn't befit a Starfleet captain. And she wouldn't make a big deal out of pity, because they wouldn't understand. They _liked_ being Borg, and had gotten accustomed to the whole "Liberated" thing.

Nonesuch's tale -- with Phadis occasionally adding some understatement to pretend she was perfectly fine -- eventually wound down, and that was when a brown-skinned human officer stepped closer to their group. She saluted at everyone, and focused on Ten. "Sir! Reporting shift-change!"

Ten nodded, then said, "This is Misha, Second-Shift's head of Security. She's one of my Starfleet exchange officers. Misha, this is my sister, Phadis, and her officer, Nonesuch."

No hesitation on "sister," and only a small one on her name. Poor kid was trying. Not her fault Phadis had to keep from twitching at almost hearing _Sixteen_ instead.

Misha gave crisp nods to them, in lieu of saluting again. "A pleasure to meet you both!" she stated.

Ten said, regretfully, "But as it's shift-change, I have to go file the reports about shore-leave, or else Starfleet will make cranky noises at me because they worry a Tal Shiar spy might pretend to be one of my shore-leave crew, and then they will make cranky noises at Fleet Admiral Kererek, and then he will be _disappointed_ at me."

Misha said, "Does that work, sir?"

"Well, don't _tell_ him!" Ten said. "It is at least an inefficient use of my time, listening to him being disappointed at me."

Eight snickered, as if Admiral Quinn hadn't once asked Phadis if _she_ could somehow rein in one of her fellow ex-Thirty -- "the cheerful one," he'd said. Phadis hadn't had the heart to tell him that Fourteen was as cheerful as Eight, if in her own nigh-Vulcan way. She'd just said, "No."

So there was some sort of leave-taking going on, with Misha and Nonesuch dutifully considering how to determine if they should have a friendship or not, considering the "relation" of their respective commanding officers. Not in so many words, but Phadis knew that dance.

She put a hand to her temple and rubbed, avoiding the eye-ridge implant there. That wasn't her memory. That'd been... _her captain_ , face and name blurred in her memory. _One of Thirty_ etched there instead.

"Phadis?" Ten asked, drawing her attention back. "I have to go back to my ship. But if you'd like to see it, you and Nonesuch are welcome to come aboard."

"If Nonesuch likes," Phadis said. "But I'm feeling a little drained. I'd better go back to my ship."

"If you need a char--" Ten immediately offered, but stopped herself.

Phadis made herself smile, and looked down at the small Romulan. "I wouldn't fit in any regen chamber you had, and you know it."

Ten almost protested -- Phadis knew there were hand-gauntlet chargers, for she had one herself -- then grinned, recognizing the joke. "Well, if you change your mind, we're docked at the lowest ring."

Phadis raised her glass in a toast. "We'll see. I still need repairs on _this_ ship, and I want to oversee the trickier ones."

So it was farewells all 'round for her, and Nonesuch going off with Misha and all the questions about a Republic ship that she could hardly ask that ship's Commander about, while Eight and Ten went back to Ten's _Kinaen_.

And that left Phadis returning to her own ship. And her own room. And, after a long consideration about whether she should try Setek's coping mechanism, into her regen closet to put her back against the modified Borg tech that kept her functional.

It hurt. Not physically, but in the chest and throat and mind. It hurt to remember when she'd been just a piece of the callous, violating whole. But...

So long as she could remember something of the dead, they weren't gone. _Honor to the dead._ She didn't know which species she'd gotten that from. But she went into a regeneration cycle, and brought the faces to mind. The thoughts. The flickering, brief memories of their minds.

Her captain. Her friends. Enemies. Strangers. The ghosts that walked through her mind, and were bid to stay in words that fell like burning sparks from her imagined mouth.

So long as she lived and remembered, the Thirty lived within her. It was a duty. Starfleet did its duty. And that was a kind of peace.


End file.
